Messianic Congregation Shema Yisrael Article Lessons in Prayer: Draw Your Servant to Your Will

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Lessons in Prayer: Draw Your Servant to Your Will

by James Pyles

This is the second of a series of articles on the topic of prayer, or "Service of the Heart". The first entry in the series is Lessons in Prayer: Why Pray with a Siddur?.

According to Nosson Scherman in his Overview section of the Complete Artscroll Siddur (July 1984), Sefard, "Prayer...is an introspective process, a clarifying, refining process of discovering what one is, what he should be, and how to achieve transformation. Indeed, the commandment to pray is expressed by the Torah as a service of the heart, not of the mouth (Taanis 2a)."

It is said that the difference between people and all other living things, is that people have the capacity to pray. This is why people are so much different than just highly evolved animals. Not only are we able to be conscious of ourselves and our own actions and thoughts, but we are able to be conscious of God.

What is the true purpose of prayer? I previously wrote another article called Does God Change His Mind? which in part, addressed the purpose of prayer. If the reason that we pray were just to impart information to God, then prayer would have no real meaning since God already knows our wants and needs, even before we express them and often, He knows what we need before we are even aware of the need ourselves.

The true purpose of prayer isn't to transmit information, since God is the author of all information, but to let God help us come closer to Him by opening up our hearts and minds to Heaven. In some sense, prayer has the same function as the sacrifices of the Levitical Priesthood had in the Tabernacle and in the Temple; the process of bringing God closer to us. Prayer then, is truly a "service" of the heart, just as the sacrifices were. Regardless of the content of our prayers, the action of prayer increases the presence of God in our lives. Prayer is the longing of the living soul within each of us for our Creator.

Yedid Nefesh or "Beloved of the Soul" is traditionally sung between the Minchah or afternoon prayer on Friday and the beginning of the Shabbat. Composed by R' Eliezer Azikri in the 16th Century, this beautiful song captures the essence of the intense love we must feel for God and our pleading with Him to draw us, His servants, to His will. In part, the lyrics state:

Beloved of the soul,
draw Your servant to Your Will;
then Your servant will hurry like a hart
to bow before Your majesty;
to him Your friendship will be sweeter
than the dripping of the honeycomb and any taste.

An Internet search yields many interesting results for "Yedid Nefesh", including this entry at YouTube.

To some degree, the ability to pray and the ability to speak are related. In Genesis 2:7, the verse states that God breathed life into Adam and he became a living being. Onkelos expresses "a living being" as "a speaking spirit". True, our ability to relate to God is much more than our ability to speak, but speaking is viewed as part of the process of prayer.

In a formal Jewish prayer service, the prayers recited before the Shemoneh Esrei are said aloud and often very loudly. However, the prayers included in the Shemoneh Esrei itself are said silently as "man's intimate heart-talk with God", according to the Artscroll Siddur's introduction. Based on Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 1:9-18, even silent prayer is said aloud, but to oneself, punctuating the relationship between prayer and speech.

Other "lessons" regarding prayer learned from the Shemoneh Esrei are that prayer does not have to be particularly long or complex. The Shemoneh Esrei consists of 18 relatively short prayers, comprised of no more than several hundred words. The Hebrew itself is fairly straightforward as well, so the linguistic construction of these prayers is not difficult to master. Yet, these prayers were written by the famed "Men of the Great Assembly" who led Israel at the beginning of the Second Temple period. These men were 120 in number and included several prophets and poets, yet they taught that perfect prayer need not be out of the reach of the ordinary person and it need not be overly lengthy, complex, or tedious.

Even our Master Yeshua taught, when his disciples asked, that prayer is short and direct as we see in what we call "the Lord's Prayer", found in both Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. Again, we see a model for perfect prayer that is direct and succinct. Since Yeshua in his time on Earth, demonstrated perfect obedience in action and worship, his model for prayer must also be perfect. Yeshua had more to say on prayer:

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, who love to pray standing in the synagogues and on street corners, so that people will see them. Yes! I tell you, they have their reward already! But you, when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, don't babble on and on like the pagans, who think God will hear them better if they talk a lot. Don't be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

--Matthew 6:5-8

This isn't a prohibition against praying in our faith communities, public prayer, or standing when you pray. Rather, it is a criticism of those who pray in order for men to see them pray; to gain a reputation as a holy person and to impress others. It is praying to please men and not God that Yeshua is speaking against, not public prayer in and of itself.

The language of prayer is also an issue, at least among the Sages of old. While the halachic authorities frown on prayer that isn't in Hebrew, the Holy Tongue, there is no direct commandment in the Bible that says a prayer to God must be said in Hebrew. The Ramban, referring to the Mishnah for Exodus 30:13, established in traditional rabbinic thought that God used Hebrew when He spoke the universe into existence. Sotah 33a says that prayer in any language is allowed, but is considered inferior to prayer in Hebrew. However the sages also say that when a person prays in Hebrew, he does not fulfill his obligation to God unless he understands every word of what he is saying in prayer. From that perspective then, is it more important to pray in Hebrew, particularly if you are not fluent, or is it more important to understand what you are saying in prayer?

In those portions of letters when Paul and the other apostles seem to be denigrating the Torah and particularly in Acts 15:10-11 when it states, "So why are you putting God to the test now by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have had the strength to bear?", the letter writers were likely talking more about man-made halacha, than the actual Torah of God. Although standing before the Throne of God in prayer should not be a casual thing, it also shouldn't represent an insurmountable burden either. Remember that prayer's primary purpose is not to impart information, but is to be our service to bring our hearts closer to God. This intimate communication should and must be freely available to everyone at any time.

I agree with Scherman when he writes, "We are at our noblest when we pray in the plural, because only by pleading for the greater good of all Israel and all the world can we fully achieve God's purpose in allowing His Beneficence to flow upon all of His Creation". While it is common and even desirable for us to pray to God and rely upon Him for our needs, we as human beings and Children of God, draw closer to Him when we draw closer to His purposes and His love for all of us. By loving each other, we are increasing our love for Him. As Yeshua Himself said,

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you made me your guest. I needed clothes and you provided them, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

--Matthew 25:35-36

In my first article in this series, Why Pray with a Siddur?, I described why a structured order is an important element of prayer. However, it would be easy to take a look at a siddur, take a look at a prayer service, and conclude that the structure is somehow "magical" or "required" and that a lack of that structure results in either a lack of respect for God or a lack of attention from God. This is not true. Extemporaneous prayer is not shunned or thought of as inferior to liturgical prayer and there are times when both are appropriate and desired. How we pray is only important once a person understands why we pray. We don't pray for the sake of the prayer service and structured prayer isn't a necessary formula to get God's attention. If we make our service a service of our mouth and not of our heart, it's not a service at all, regardless of how we structure our prayer time.

In my next article in this series, I'm going to revisit liturgical prayer from a different perspective. My first article described why a structured prayer service is a desirable expression of our devotion to God, even for the many of us who do not have a history of praying in such a way. My next article will take a look at the liturgy from the perspective of people who might be tempted to believe that more and longer is better. The Messianic movement is sometimes accused of being "legalistic" and in a way, enslaved to our "structure", including our liturgical service. Sadly, at least for some individuals and congregations, this has become true.

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